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Robert Burns: Born 250 years ago today

"The man o' independent mind, He looks an' laughs at a' that". A very tenuous connection with intellectual property, I know, but I could not let the day pass without reproducing one of my favourite poems:

Then let us pray that come it may,(As come it will for a' that,)That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.For a' that, an' a' that,It's coming yet for a' that,That Man to Man, the world o'er,Shall brothers be for a' that."

This was an appeal by the National Guild of Removers & Storers ("NGRS") against an award of £1,275 damages in its favour by District Judge Vary for passing off. By dismissing that appeal, His Honour Judge Hacon seems to have settled a 7 year controversy as to what should be the correct measure of damages for what is often an inadvertent misrepresentation of continued membership of the NGRS by a removal or storage business that no longer wishes to remain a member of that guild.

In Caspian Pizza Ltd and Others v Shah and Another [2015] EWHC 3567 (IPEC) (9 Dec 2015) Judge Hacon dismissed a claim for trade mark infringement and passing off. The trade marks relied upon were the device mark that appears above and the word mark CASPIAN. The judge declared the word mark invalid because the defendants had run a restaurant called "CASPIAN" in another part of the country which constituted an "earlier right" within the meaning of s.5 (4) of the Trade Marks Act 1994. However, he did not declare the device mark invalid on the ground that the defendants had no goodwill in the running chef logo. I blogged about the case in Caspian Pizza Ltd and Others v Shah and Anotheron 24 Jan 2016.

The claimants appealed to the Court of Appeal against the invalidation of the word mark on the grou…